Passively Recommending Books

  As we are about to enter spooky season, I thought I would put up a quick post about using one of this season's most anticipated horror titles, What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman. The idea is to show how you can assemble these book displays in a variety of ways. Books can become book friends by pairing them together using different approaches. There isn't one answer.   This book is about parental grief, hometowns, and being haunted by the past. It's also a southern gothic folk horror book with a healthy dose of body horror. The sense of dread and overall creepiness builds as book progresses. Fans of domestic suspense who are open to some horror will love this book.  The plot? From the publisher's ( Quirk Books ) website :  After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local f

One of the things I repeat over and over is that people love to sit at the beach and read about about the pain and suffering of others. The Horror Writers Association along with  United for Libraries , Book Riot , and Booklist has created an entire program for libraries called Summer Scares . There are titles picked for adults, young adults, and middle grade readers. Click here for more information from Becky Spratford on her blog, RA for All Horror .  In that vein, I would like to show how you can use horror tied with beachy themes for a fun summer book display that will draw patrons in. The two titles I'm using are forthcoming releases but you can use the idea with whatever your library's collection holds. Don't forget to add titles from suspense, thrillers, and non-fiction to create a display; never get hung up on genre.  I've made summer displays like this with all kinds of horror, suspense, and thrillers.  In September, Quirk will release What Kind of Mother by Cl